A proposal to change staffing policy in the Kewanee Fire Department may not make it into the new city budget, as three of the five City Council members have now spoken against the change.

At last week’s budget planning meeting, City Manager Kip Spear presented a set of proposals for reducing city expenses, as revenues in the city’s general fund could fall $600,000 short of expenditures if no cuts are made.

One of Spear’s proposals was to allow the fire department to operate with a minimum of four, rather than five, firefighters on duty, rather than have a firefighter on overtime to cover for another who is sick or on vacation.

The proposal would save about $90,000 a year in overtime in the fire department, Spear said.

At Monday’s meeting, Councilman Bob Kuntz, who was out of town and did not attend last week’s budget meeting, said he has heard from several citizens who oppose four-man shifts on the fire department.

Kuntz said he agreed with them, adding that he couldn’t go along with compromising public safety in order to save $90,000.

He agreed that the council has to control spending, as the local economy still hasn’t recovered fully from the recession of 2008.

Kuntz also said city officials learned Monday that the city’s sales tax revenue for January came in at $30,000 less than in January 2012. If that trend continues, he said, the city’s sales tax revenues for the year could be half a million dollars lower than in 2012.

Mayor Bruce Tossell said of the decision on fire department staffing, “Either way we go, we’re taking a gamble.”

If the council allows four-man shifts in the fire department, Tossell said, the gamble is that there won’t be a fire on days when the department is a man short. If the council decides to pay the overtime and maintain five-man shifts, it’s gambling that the local economy will improve.

“I’d rather gamble on (the economy) than with a life any time,” the mayor said.

At last week’s budget meeting, Councilman Duane Gillespie also said he didn’t feel compromising public safety would be worth the overtime savings.

Only Councilman Mike Yaklich has spoken in support of the staffing change in the fire department. Deficit spending in the city’s general fund could cut dangerously into the reserves in the fund, Yaklich said.

The council will hold another budget meeting at 6 p.m. Monday in the council chambers at City Hall. Kuntz said he urged the citizens who spoke with him about the fire department situation to attend that meeting and express their views to the council.

Page 2 of 2 - Also Monday, the council approved the purchase of a new Ford utility vehicle for the police department from Gustafson Ford in Kewanee.

Spear noted that the Gustafson bid was lower than the bid from Landmark Ford in Springfield, which supplies vehicles to the Illinois State Police. The city has purchased police vehicles from Landmark in past because local dealerships couldn’t match the state bid price.

The city will trade in a 2007 Ford Explorer that Police Chief Jim Dison has used “for administrative purposes as a command unit, and due to its four-wheel-drive capability, by patrol during snow events,” Dison wrote in a memo to the council.

The new vehicle will also be four-wheel-drive, and “would become the rolling warehouse of extra equipment needed by staff during emergency events and as the rolling command post for any dire situations,” Dison’s memo said.

The new SUV will be “pursuit rated,” the memo said, “whereas our current vehicle is not, thus possibly helping the city in liability issues if there was a crash.”

Gustafson Ford’s bid of $18,540 was the lowest of three the city received. The bid price includes a trade-in allowance of $12,000 for the 2007 Explorer, which has fewer than 30,000 miles on it; and an extended warranty.

The council also approved a bid from O and W Cleaning Specialists of Kewanee for janitorial services for City Hall and the Amtrak station.

O and W bid $12,000. The other bid, from Professional Building Services of Bettendorf, was for $43,440.